


A Way Back to Nowhere

by maida_shepherd



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Action/Adventure, Childhood Trauma, Fantasy, Fate & Destiny, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:33:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26317990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maida_shepherd/pseuds/maida_shepherd
Summary: An ex-rebel of Doma. A lost son of Ala Mhigo. A destiny neither of them expected.
Relationships: WoLxWoL
Kudos: 3





	1. Prologue One: Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Please be aware that A Way Back to Nowhere contains scenes of violence, character deaths, and referral of trauma.

* * *

PROLOGUE ONE

**FIRE**

* * *

**F** ire was the only thing left.

As the young Hyur got closer to the village of Eiko, she could see naught but the flames that consumed her home. No building was spared from being enveloped in crimson and turned to nothing more than ash on the mountain. She ran throughout the village, screaming at the top of her lungs the names of anyone and everyone.

The only thing she heard in return was the raging fire.

Still, she searched, and she searched, and she searched, failing to fight back tears and clouded vision. Buildings that were only teased by flames were given quick run-throughs, and those that were more flame than wood were at least looked in through ember windows for any survivors. Every building was searched, and every building was the same.

Heavy breathing was replaced with shrieking sobs as she was begging for someone, anyone to listen to her; to hear her, to call out for her so she could find them and save them, but every cry fell on ears that simply were not in the village anymore. Her legs followed with the shrieking and eventually gave out, forcing her to collapse in a heap in the center of town.

It was naught but an hour ago that the village had still been standing. She had bid farewell to the village folk to go hunting for their dinner—a simple feat given how few people were left. Five years ago, the others had been stolen by the Garleans, though they insisted it was simply a draft now that Doma was under control of Garlemald. They took the younger adults, those strong enough to perform hard labor. Among them was her father, the village elder, and her mother, the previous elder’s daughter. They promised they would come back, and it was only temporary, but they never did.

Her brother and her had done their best to be the elders in their father’s place, though there was only so much two eleven-year-old children could do. Over time, it grew to be habit and the two were able to learn from the elderly about running the village. Eventually, things were relatively normal again and many of the old customs were still practiced to the best of the village’s capacity.

But now those who were left were gone. There were no elders, no children, no teenagers. Memories seemed to burn up with the flames and within the Hyur teenager, there was naught left but the red of anger and pain and revenge. The only thing to pause her rightful fury was the old man she spotted collapsed roughly twenty yalms from her. Without hesitation, she ran to him and collapsed to his side, checking his vitals and desperately begging for any sign of life. It was only as she became more levelheaded that she noticed the bullet wound in the side of his head.

Carefully, she pulled the old man into her lap—who she now noticed was Hinote, her friend’s grandfather and a former advisor to her father—and cradled him slowly. Tears fell upon his skin as she hugged him tightly, rocking back and forth, begging the Kami to heal him. Begging turned into anger, and anger turned into bargaining and she loudly shouted to the village that she would take the place of her people if they just brought them back.

There she stayed, holding Hinote as though it would revive him, and together in the wide and open center of Eiko village, they stayed. It wasn’t until the fires ceased and Eiko was but a memory that her tears ran dry.

It was still a few moments before she got up and pulled Hinote into a fireman’s carry, hoisting him over her shoulders and carrying him to the outskirts of the village. Just beyond was a small graveyard, and the least she could do was give him the funeral he certainly deserved—though not for another twenty or so healthy years.

In the graveyard of Eiko, there was a stone slab with Doman carved into the sides. Her mother told her this slab was believed to have been a gift from the Kami, that all the deceased of Doma would be blessed as they sought passage into the afterlife. Once someone passed away, they were brought to the stone slab and ritual took place. She would do no less, remembering the rites she learned from her parents as a child, and as she placed Hinote on the slab, she knelt before him and began to pray.

_O Great Kami of the earth and the mountain,_

_Kind Kami that protects and provides_

_Sarutahiko, I humbly bow my head and offer this one’s soul_

_A soul of hard work, a soul of sage and wisdom_

_May you find him in the afterlife and guide him_

_For his journey here is done, and with you has just begun._

After was the prayer of pronunciation, a prayer that detailed the accomplishments of the deceased, and one in which the Hyur went on in detail. Hinote was like a grandfather to her and had been full of life and wisdom, his many years having given him an opinion of nearly everything. Though it went on for a while, even this prayer, too, ended and she found herself knelt in the silence of a coming night.

Sitting back up, she knew the next thing to do was to burn the body so the soul could move on. Thankfully, there had been some lumber near the slab, but she still needed some more. An hour provided her the time needed to gather the rest of the wood and to arrange it around his body.

When the body is ready, she stepped back and took one last look. She’d just seen fire, and fire was horrible and traumatizing, and yet, she was not afraid for the fire she was about to make. In this, it would be freeing, and Hinote would be able to live on in the after world in peace and tranquility. It was, truly, humbling.

With the flint that resided next to the slab, she set to make the fire and build it until it took hold of the wood and the body. As the fire grew and danced, she watched and she prayed and she bid him farewell and his soul peace in the next life. And although it was only her, she performed the traditional dances and songs to the best of her ability.

As the body became ash and the soul was released, she gathered them into one of the couple of funeral boxes still near the slab and sealed it. A pinch of his ash was used to make just enough ink to write the pictographs for his name, sealing the body within.

She sauntered to his family’s gravesite and placed the box down, and because it was the time to provide an offering to him, she offered the bow and the quiver on her bow. These items, made by her young hands and maintained throughout the years, had brought food and pelts and elsewise to the village and served no use now. This bow could not fight, but perhaps should Hinote need it in his next life, it would be useful.

“Forgive me,” she spoke under her breath. “I promise one day to return with a proper offering, old friend.”

The smell of ash was still on the air as the sun rose in the east, as it did day in and day out. The light woke her up to the site of Hinote’s grave and gave her pause until she realized the previous day was not just a nightmare. No, it was real, and it was gone, and she was all alone. A part of her thought about curling into a ball and dying here, letting her bones rest with what little remained of Eiko, but if she did, then who would avenge her people? Who would grant them the justice they so deserved?

It was, unfortunately, the craving for revenge that pushed her to her feet, but the feeling of respect that granted her the ability to say a prayer to Hinote and thank him for his protection overnight. Turning on her heel, she took small, measured steps out of the graveyard and along the old outskirts of Eiko. Everything she knew was here. Family, friends, home. Sure, she had gone with her father on trips to Kugane, though they were few and far between, and they were nothing more than faint memories lost in a childhood she scarcely felt near. All it took was a single hour for her to lose everything yesterday, a single hour to lose that which she had built and loved and cherished for sixteen years.

A part of her wondered why Sarutahiko didn’t protect them, though she wondered if they’d merely been taken. She hadn’t found any other bodies besides Hinote’s, and it wasn’t uncommon for the Garleans to set fire to these smaller villages when they were empty. But it wasn’t enough. They should be here—they should all be here with her, enjoying the morning as they normally did, tending to the gardens and the children and hunting for dinner and performing their crafts. The air should be filled with laughter and the arguments of an older generation and the smell of katsu cooking in open-air kitchens.

But the morning only brought the reveal of the blackness of ash, of the smell of tyranny, and the sound of despair. It was not home anymore. It was not comfort and joy and family and friends. It was death. It was a graveyard and buried here were the memories she could never relive. Would she forget them? Would she forget it, just like the memories of her childhood had begun to fade? Would she forget their voices, forget their mannerisms, forget how they looked or how they decorated their houses?

With one final look, lingering as she struggled to remember the village that stood the day before, she began to walk down the mountain.


	2. Prologue Two: Burn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An ex-rebel of Doma. A lost son of Ala Mhigo. A destiny neither of them expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please be aware that A Way Back to Nowhere contains scenes of violence, character deaths, and referral of trauma.

* * *

PROLOGUE TWO

**BURN**

* * *

_Clank._

_Clank._

_Clank._

Metal met metal as the factory workers slaved away. Everything was the same meticulous pattern, the same meticulous rhythm, the same meticulous motions. Day in, day out, day in, day out. The only thing that changed between the days was the hunger within his brothers, young and starving as they were.

How long had it been like this? A year? A decade? He’d been but a child—and his mother would argue he was a child still—when the occupation happened. Though old enough to remember the last years of the Ala Mhigan empire, he felt those memories fade more and more with each passing day. Memories of running around freely, of feeling light on the wind of the valley were slowly replaced with the cold, repetition metal of a magitech factory.

_Clank._

_Clank._

_Clank._

The labor he performed, pulling a lever to stamp a piece of metal into shape, was little more than muscle memory to him as he thought about the future of his family. They had nothing and were given even less. At the rate things were going, they would all waste away and become nothing more than one of the many bodies that hid under the dying landscape of Gyr Abania.

‘ _What is the point of any of this?’_ he thought to himself, the machinery in the background the only reply to console him. It wasn’t always like this—or, perhaps it always was, and it just hadn’t caught up to his family yet. Perhaps the Garleans just sped up the process that was doomed to fall upon the people of Ala Mhigo. Perhaps they were always meant to fall, to suffer, to be little more than exploitable labor.

_Clank._

_Clank._

_Clank._

As the hours passed by, he thought of nothing else. The days were easier to finish if he didn’t argue with himself or think about how miserable life was and how pointless his job was. But as he got home that night, he could think of nothing else. Everything he did was pointless and all he did was take up resources that could go to them, that could go to his brothers. By staying with them, by going to work, he was doing the exact opposite of what he wanted to do.

No matter how much he wanted to help them, though, he couldn’t find a way how. He wasn’t like them.

He wasn’t like his father, a man who was half Roegadyn, half Ala Mhigan, and all powerhouse. Even in his hunger, his father had managed to maintain most of his size. He often wondered if it was powered by little else than his father’s indomitable spirit. Despite their circumstances, he still found the strength to rebel in small ways, including tending a hidden garden to ensure his family had something to eat. Compared to his father, he only ever felt small and ineffective and unsure.

He wasn’t like his mother, a proud and powerful woman who was ill afraid to do what needed to be done. Beautiful to a fault, when the Garleans came, she presented herself as male to better protect herself from the rumors of what the Garlean armies did in their free time with Ala Mhigan women. She sullied herself to the point where none in the factory thought her to be anything other than another man on the line. How oft did he hope for the courage to do whatever it took was something he inherited from her?

He wasn’t like the middle child, born to lead and born to defend those who could not defend themselves. His brother was everything he wasn’t: courageous, proud, and fearful of nothing except the inability to push himself further. Even though he was the eldest, it was his brother that seemed to lead them, even organizing the child laborers at the factory to better ensure their protection. There wasn’t a moment he didn’t admire his brother.

He wasn’t like the youngest child, still so full of hope in a world now destroyed. There was a light in the youngest that didn’t seem to exist elsewhere and later in life, he would learn his youngest brother took up the ways of the Fist and sought to ensure the survival of its practice. The war didn’t phase the youngest even a little, and because of that, he never found himself burdened by it. The older he got, the more charismatic he became, and he wished he could have the charm of his youngest sibling.

As he lay in his bed that evening, staring up at the ceiling, he wondered what he could do to contribute to his family. How could he be like them? The eldest child and, truly, the biggest coward amongst them. There was no hiding how much the Garleans terrified him. Before they arrived, the skies were blue and bright and held the promise of so much. When did he last see the blue sky free of the black ships that soared it now, or from the smoke that rose in plumes above the various factories scattered about?

There were rumors, hints, feelers of rebellion that got passed around every so often. In the beginning, he’d been hopeful and at first, it seemed like the rebels had something to the words they shouted, the fights they started, the war they waged. But every defeat broke more and more of his spirit. Rebellion, he decided, only led to mass graves. Resistance was futile and a pipe dream that couldn’t be kept safely, for he was sure the Garleans would wake you up and arrest you for it.

The only thing he could do was join those who imprisoned them, he imagined. Some in the factory told tales of how joining the Garlean army would put you on the path to becoming a citizen, and if you became a citizen, you’d be protected from their brutalization. If he joined, he could shield himself. More importantly, he could take care of his family. Maybe he could make them citizens, too. In the meantime, they wouldn’t have to cloth him or feed him. They would be free to eat a little more, spend a little more on clothes and necessities. They would, as much as they could be being occupied by Garlemald, be free.

Sleep was light and merely a matter of passing the time, and as the sun started to rise in the sky, he woke up without issue. Quietly, he got up and put on that which was the most battered and torn, intending for his younger brothers to use the pieces in better shape so that they might spend less on new clothing as they grew. Nothing else came with him except the leather gloves given to him by his father. _‘We need to protect ourselves, since they won’t,’_ he said.

As he finished, he caught himself in a small, broken mirror his mother routinely used to ensure she never looked too feminine before work. Under the soot, all told, he was growing to be a handsome specimen with rich skin the color of the clay hills that found themselves among Gyr Abania and eyes that burned like fire should the mood arise. His features looked to be cut within noble pottery, with sharp angles in his jaw and cheeks and a nose that gave away his quarter Roegadyn decent. Topping it all was a mess of red hair that, when clean, looked to be painted the fiery red of the traditional Ala Mhigan robes his mother once wore.

The only thing he saw among all that, however, was a coward, and he frowned in discontent. _‘Look at how pathetic I am,’_ he thought. _‘Look at how weak I’ve become.’_

He gave his face a quick rub to clear off some of the more obvious dirt and squared his shoulders up. With a puffed chest and how tall he was in his sixteenth year, he figured he’d be able to lie about his age and get in. Perhaps he did not get the strength, the determination, the damn pure grit the rest of his family seemed to have, but he did have being the size of a small barn on his side, and this he would use in every favor.

Shaking his head and affirming his resolve, he turned to leave, but not before he looked over his family one last time. He begged their forgiveness and begged them to hold on, promising he’d be back with protection and money and they’d be able to restore their lives to the way they were. All he had to do was serve them, all he had to do was survive. He would survive. He would give them the glory they once had held. Could he do it?

_‘I don’t have a choice,’_ he told himself. _‘We don’t have a choice.’_

For the first time in his life, his determination to do right by his kin burned bright.


End file.
